can Congress and people made no dependence upon the probability of matching them by similar strength. They only knew that their country was to be invaded by formidable armies, sustained by enormous power at home, and that they were to resist by such means as they had, and to be identified with liberty, whether in honor or disgrace; simply believing, that, with a just God on their side, they ought to triumph: they surely would triumph.

Thus all human calculation of chances must be thrown to the winds. For instance, raw recruits cannot fight veterans; citizen commanders cannot match scientific experienced generals; soldiers well dressed, well armed, well fed, and promptly paid, must conquer the hungry, barefoot, and uncompensated; superior numbers, with inexhaustible recruits, must subdue small numbers; successive defeats must finally annihilate a few poor and ill-provisioned men. These and a multitude of other military aphorisms, true beyond a doubt in a comparison of merely human forces, were all utterly at fault in a war of tyranny with God and liberty; and the rapidly-accumulating consciousness of this superhuman power supplied and revealed the heroism of the national life.

CHAPTER IV.

PATRIOTISM DEMONSTRATES A SUSTAINED NATIONAL LIFE.

"In short, it was ultimately owing to this influence of the God of heaven that the thoughts, the views, the purposes, the speeches, the writings, and the whole conduct, of those who were engaged in this great affair, were so overruled as to bring into effect the desired happy event."— - CHAUNCY.

LOVE of country is God's provision for promoting the stability and regular development of civil institutions. The wandering tribes of barbarism make no progress in agriculture, in the arts or sciences. Scythians, Indians, Gypsies, know little of the blessings of home; and their unnumbered generations live and die without the advantages of civilization. They have shown, it is true, enough of preference for one land over another to indicate the presence of the original tendency, but so little as to deprive them of its intended practical results, and show, that, in the long ages, violence has been done to one of the best provisions of the

creation.

Patriotism, or love of country, is perfectly consistent with philanthropy, or love of the human race. As the best possible good to man, as man, is found in the highest development of domestic and home institutions, so, on the other hand, the strongest, purest love of our own country implies the truest devotion to the wants and rights of universal man. There is, therefore, never any conflict between real patriotism and true philanthropy. In a low state of cultivation, the love of country may degenerate into degrading selfishness, and give to war all the horrors of barbarism; but Christian refinement extends all patriotism into the sphere of true justice and general benevolence.

PATRIOTISM, BRITISH, AND THEN AMERICAN.

The love of country which our ancestors brought to America was essentially British. Of their devotion to the fatherland they gave the strongest possible evidence. They were British by birth and education; British of choice. They believed heartily that England was the grandest, noblest part of earth; that her wealth, learning, heroism, and antiquity made her the centre of the globe, and the grand type of civilization. They fully believed in an hereditary monarchy, and considered devoted loyalty to the crown the soul of honor. The upheavals of the Protectorate were exceptional. After the surges of passion subsided, they longed for a king. Cromwell would have been immensely more popular if he had been a sovereign in form, as he was in fact. With this love of monarchy was incorporated a strong love of liberty, which is as truly and essentially English as her patriotism. When, therefore, these American forefathers endured for long years the oppression of a tyranny which was directly opposed to the spirit of Magna Charta and the British Constitution, they gave a very strong evidence of devoted patriotism. They intended to give one more, yet stronger. To flee across the ocean, subdue the forest and the savages, and yet claim only the rights belonging to British subjects, and, with loyal devotion, hand over all their acquisitions of empire to their sovereign, was this additional evidence of patriotic devotion to England, to which they were pledged in heart and soul. But, in course of time, it fully appeared that neither the folly of man nor the wisdom of God would allow it. They were slowly taught that this was their country; and, almost imperceptibly, their patriotism passed over from the country of their birth to the country of their adoption.

And a new race of native Americans had risen up here, who knew no other country but this. They loved its "billowy heights" and delightful vales, its wild forests and its

growing towns, its mighty rivers and inland seas; they loved its rocks and snow-capped mountains, its genial skies and balmy air, and especially its broad impress of freedom, and stamp of the Infinite everywhere; and grew great in muscle, mind, and heart, as they felt the power of this great country in their aspirations and plans.

The transition made included a revolution in opinions as well as in interest. This, Americans began to feel, is our country. We found it here waiting for us. God gave it to our fathers and to us; and it belongs to us, and surely not to those who denied us the rights of British subjects at home and in America. Thus patriotism here became strongly identified with love of liberty. Slowly the minds of the people awoke to the dangers arising from caste in society and the exclusive privileges of the governing classes; and, just in proportion as freedom in this great country became real, Americans increased in patriotic devotion.

The attachment, at first naturally fixed on the physical beauty and greatness of the country, passed over to its growing institutions. Americans began to love the freedom of thought and speech, of the ballot and the press, which had grown up here, they hardly knew how. They loved the birthplace of their children and the graves of their fathers, but vastly more their rising free schools and their "freedom to worship God;" and, if they did acknowledge a foreign sovereign, they gloried in the right of electing their own legislators, and judging for themselves when the administration of law was just and when it was oppressive. This seemed a country made for all these things; and they loved it. American patriotism was, therefore, eminently rational. It was not merely of the senses, nor was it merely traditional and hereditary. It was discriminating, and hence inspiring as a new revelation. Its thinking, its impulses, and its possibilities, were new. No such grasp, such elevation of patriotism, it may be safely affirmed, had ever before been known in history.

Let it now be asked, " Will this national life be sustained?" The answer to this question must be comprehensive and far-reaching. It is to be found, not in one period merely, but in the whole history and profoundest philosophy of the Republic. We shall reach the great fact upon which it depends, and state it more formally, hereafter; but we begin the answer here.

As the life of a new nation has gradually rolled up before us, we have marked its beauty and its vigor: but we have been compelled instinctively to fear that it would be overwhelmed; that its antagonisms would be too strong for its intrinsic power. It was very vigorous during the mental conflicts which preceded the war. Would it endure the ordeal of blood? The answer is in part before us. The representative battle-scenes of the Revolution have revealed a heroism which could resist the firmest onsets of power, and finally wear out the resolution of despotism. But why did it? Whence this heroism in battle, this patience in unparalleled suffering?

Precisely here the deep and pervading patriotism of the American people presents itself. Love of country was at first individual. Each man, woman, and child was conscious of its presence and growing power. The single citizen would have asserted it in some form if he had known he was alone, if no other American cared for his country. It was, however, most agreeable to find his neighbors possessed: of the same feeling; and when the dark hour came on, which made each man a hero, and every volunteer feel as if he could fight the British nation alone, what thrills of joy flashed through the hearts of the country as it began to appear that patriotism was the absorbing sentiment of the whole people! At length, it was evident that American patriotism was organic; that it was not now the love of England, but first and everywhere the love of America and her incipient institutions of liberty. It was not the love of a British colony, of a dependency upon a foreign power, but